Mexican music icon Juan Gabriel was remembered in Mexico City with an intimate vinyl listening session hours before the tenth anniversary of his death.
The memorial listening took place at Casa Pedregal, a historic venue built in 1945 by Mexican architect Luis Barragán, ahead of August 28, the date the singer passed away in Santa Monica in the United States at age 66.
Organised by Virgin Music Group alongside the composer's son Iván Aguilera, the event brought together listeners to hear classic recordings played directly from physical vinyl pressings.
The session opened with tracks from Los Dúo, a 2015 album on which the artist, born Alberto Aguilera, revisited his greatest hits with Latin music stars including Vicente Fernández, Marco Antonio Solís, and Natalia Lafourcade.
Notes from the track Querida, featuring Colombian singer Juanes, inaugurated the main program, following a prelude of music by José Alfredo Jiménez and Lola Dueñas, whom Juan Gabriel regarded as his teachers.
Unreleased recordings and physical vinyl growth
Leonardo Ramírez, marketing director at Virgin Music Group, told news agency EFE that the organization aims to preserve the artist's legacy during a global resurgence in physical music sales.
Ramírez stated that global purchases of physical music products have risen by 14 percent in recent times.
He revealed that the vinyl edition of Eterno, which launched the second part of the session, features five unreleased recordings captured by mariachi director Guillermo Hernández.
According to Ramírez, Hernández preserves a hard drive filled with raw vocal tracks recorded during unannounced late-night visits by the singer to his home.
The listening session concluded with the album Mis 40 en Bellas Artes, commemorating the artist's historic 1990 performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where he brought popular song and dance into Mexico's primary fine arts venue.
Career milestones and cinema screenings
Juan Gabriel, widely known as El divo de Juárez, was a prolific songwriter who composed thousands of songs throughout his career.
He wrote his first song, La muerte del palomo, at age 13, composing a ballad about death and solitude that reflected feelings he experienced as a child, when he remarked that he was an old and deep man.
August holds double significance for his legacy, marking both his passing and the month in 1971 when he recorded his debut album Un alma joven, which featured his breakthrough hit No tengo dinero.
Tributes to the composer will continue on August 28 with cinema screenings of his original Palacio de Bellas Artes concert across theaters in the United States and several Latin American countries.
